ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Airborne bacteria confirm the pristine nature of the Southern Ocean boundary layer.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Atmospheric Microbial Transport to Antarctica and Its Ecological Implications: A Systematic Review.Environmental microbiology · 2026Pooled it
- 16S rRNA gene sequencing baseline for the atmospheric microbiome of traffic-impacted urban centers in the Klang Valley, Malaysia.Microbiology resource announcements · 2026Article
- Seasonal connectivity of microbes and carbohydrates between ocean, atmosphere, and cryosphere in Kongsfjorden (Svalbard, Arctic Ocean).ISME communications · 2026Article
- Exploring local and regional contribution to airborne bacterial communities in the Antarctic Peninsula.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Daily turnover of airborne bacterial communities in the sub-Antarctic.Environmental microbiome · 2025Article
- Shipboard observational evidence of supercooled liquid water clouds in the mid-troposphere over the Southern Ocean.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Microbial ecology of the atmosphere.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2022Review
- Black carbon footprint of human presence in Antarctica.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Sources, Occurrence and Characteristics of Fluorescent Biological Aerosol Particles Measured Over the Pristine Southern Ocean.Journal of geophysical research. Atmospheres : JGR · 2021Article
- Ocean Aerobiology.Frontiers in microbiology · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Microorganisms are ubiquitous and highly diverse in the atmosphere. Despite the potential impacts of airborne bacteria found in the lower atmosphere over the Southern Ocean (SO) on the ecology of Antarctica and on marine cloud phase, no previous region-wide assessment of bioaerosols over the SO has been reported. We conducted bacterial profiling of boundary layer shipboard aerosol samples obtained during an Austral summer research voyage, spanning 42.8 to 66.5°S. Contrary to findings over global subtropical regions and the Northern Hemisphere, where transport of microorganisms from continents often controls airborne communities, the great majority of the bacteria detected in our samples were marine, based on taxonomy, back trajectories, and source tracking analysis. Further, the beta diversity of airborne bacterial communities varied with latitude and temperature, but not with other meteorological variables. Limited meridional airborne transport restricts southward community dispersal, isolating Antarctica and inhibiting microorganism and nutrient deposition from lower latitudes to these same regions. A consequence and implication for this region's marine boundary layer and the clouds that overtop it is that it is truly pristine, free from continental and anthropogenic influences, with the ocean as the dominant source controlling low-level concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei and ice nucleating particles.
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